The word was previously allowed by the Chair, and the situation is serious enough to warrant its use.
As, I was saying, they said they would exclude beer from the debate on this long awaited review of the Excise Tax Act, that dozens of witnesses and members have examined since 1997. All of a sudden, because of mysterious interests, beer is no longer included in the excise tax review.
Thus, parliament will sanction the monopoly held by Labatt and Molson, disregarding the fact that sound competition, in this case from a small group of microbreweries sharing only 5% of the whole beer market, always serves the best public interests. The government would rather crush them like a fly than help them breathe, as it would any for any other company.
Is it normal that a company as big as Labatt can buy a microbrewery in the U.S. or in Europe and pay 9 ¢ a litre in taxes, while a microbrewery in Quebec or in the rest of Canada has to pay more than 28 ¢ a litre in taxes?
The large brewery takes over the supermarkets' shelves. It stacks them with its microbrewery's beer on which it pays 9¢ per litre, while the Quebec or Canadian microbrewery puts in its beer on which it pays a tax of 28¢ per litre, so that the tax it pays the government is higher than the profit that is left to expand a little, to advertise a little and to stand out in the market.
This situation is intolerable. The Bloc Quebecois is vehemently opposed to it and its critic, the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, said it well this morning: we will fight this bill. We were raise awareness in all Quebec ridings. We will condemn all Liberal members from Quebec who dared to remain silent, and it seems they will remain silent until the end.
I ask them one last time: have some dignity, some pride, some respect for microbrewery workers. Stand up and tell your government that it is unacceptable to give greater importance to the interests of the husband of the committee chair and large breweries.
This is an unacceptable conflict of interest and it compromises the very credibility of the democratic action that we must take here, in the House of Commons, which is to defend the interests of our fellow citizens, without any conflict of interest.